I think I agree with you. After all, if we ever do have truly universal sufferage--that is, grant to the vote to teenagers and school children, toddlers and foreign nationals--it will be precisely because our dedication to equality made us forget what democracy was all about in the first place.

Indeed, Mark. The madness of the arch-conservative position has only the virtue of conssitency.

Rick, trust you to lead us into the realm of the absurd. You might want to look up "universal suffrage" in a good dictionary some time... though I acknowledge that the use of "universal" in this case is similar to that applied to the Roman Church!

It's worth remembering that in some states, Republicans are working hard to limit the franchise (largely by invoking mythical fraud). One governor even commented he didn't think college students should be allowed to vote--they are too young!

Thanks, IT. I heard the story in NPR today about Republican efforts to clamp down on voting and registration by requiring photo I.D. and other forms of identity checks. Obviously one hopes to minimize fraud, but it is clear that some of these efforts will disproportionately restrain voting among some of the less well heeled. I know that as a non-driver I had to plunk down a significant fee to obtain a "non driver driver license" -- to what extent is this a shifted poll tax?

Vote fraud is endemic in Northern California. I personally have contacted the local registrar's office when I discovered that the rectory of one parish I was assigned had over 200 voters claiming the addres as their residency. Some of them had already voted by the time I did in the early afternoon. Considering that it was a three priest parish and that none of the names belonged to priests, it was stunning.

I have also cautioned my friends who are permanent residents, but not US, citizens, that they cannot vote. All of them (this would be over a dozen) had registered and voted not realizing that they were ineligible to do so.

My current parish has a member of the county's registrar office, so I hear tales of discovered voting irregularities and fraud constantly.

The voting system in CA is deeply flawed. Nothing "mythical" about it.

My Contribution to the Listening Process

"a book that honors the Word of God, the faith once delivered, and moves it into our cultural context."—The Episcopal New Yorker

"seeks to meet opponents on their own ground, assessing their arguments carefully and refuting them courteously.... The value ... lies not in its conclusions alone but chiefly in the way Haller reaches them. Whoever is charged with compiling ... resources [on same-sex relationships] will want to add this book to the list."— The Anglican Theological Review